The One Before The First One
by anonymous7
Summary: A filler for the time between Thanksgiving 1988 and September 1994. CM
1. The One After Chandler's Toe

**Chapter 1: The One After Chandler's Toe**

_December 20, 1988 -- Ross and Chandler's Dorm Room_

"You sure you don't want to spend the break with me, man?" Ross asked.

Chandler, looking depressed, shook his head, while he piled shirts into a duffel bag. "No, thanks. I think I've seen enough of your family for a lifetime." He paused, glancing at Ross, before continuing. "Well, your psycho sister anyway."

"My sister isn't a…" Ross started, but then stopped. Monica wasn't a psycho, but he couldn't really blame Chandler for thinking so. Heck, he was lucky Chandler was still willing to be **his** friend after what had happened. Of course, if Chandler ever learned that he was the source of the Sir Limpsalot jokes, that may no longer be the case.

"Monica isn't so bad once you get to know her. She just gets all weird around other people. She hasn't had a lot of friends." Ross finally said.

"I know, I know. Poor Monica. She had no friends cause she looked like a whale!" Chandler replied. He cringed a little, embarrassed about being so cruel, but man - she cut off his toe!

"Hey!" Ross responded, just as there was a knock at the door.

He opened it and the object of their discussion walked in. "Hi, I ran ahead. I needed a break from Mom and Dad," Monica said, her breathing a little bit heavy from the run.

Ross gave her a hug and then went back to packing. Monica glanced around the room and caught Chandler's eye. Damn! When she had decided to escape her parents for a few minutes, she had completely forgotten about Chandler. "Hi," she mumbled, not sure exactly what to say. They hadn't spoken at all since the ill-fated toe incident. He had understandably been angry at her for it, and hadn't spoken to her the rest of his visit. As a result, she hadn't said anymore to him than repeated apologies.

Seeing him again made her remember how badly she felt and at the same time vaguely annoyed. The whole point was to embarrass him and somehow she had become the embarrassed one again.

Chandler nodded at her and turned back to his packing, a clear scowl on his face.

"What are you doing over the break, Chandler?" Monica asked. If anyone had been paying attention to her, they would have noticed her hands grasping the blanket on Ross' bed tightly, but as it was neither Ross nor Chandler were paying enough attention to pick up on the signs of her nervousness.

Chandler grunted in response, then glancing at her suddenly exploded, "Look, don't try to be polite with me, okay! You friggin' cut off my toe!"

He stood for a moment glaring at her and nothing was said. Ross had halted packing and was just watching them. Monica, her eyes still on Chandler, whispered, "I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Turning around to grab a pile of socks, Chandler muttered back, "Well, sorry doesn't bring my toe back."

He turned back around to put his socks in the duffel bag and caught sight of Monica's face, her eyes full of tears. He didn't care. She deserved it.

The first tear fell down her cheek and Monica rose just as the door to the room opened. Judy walked in with Jack behind. With one look at her daughter's face, Judy exclaimed, "For goodness sake, Monica. Stop that blubbering!" Then turning to Ross, she walked over to give him a hug. "Oh, Ross, it will be so nice to have you home for awhile."

Chandler watched as Monica walked from the room, tears now falling continuously from her eyes. But he didn't care. She was a psycho and he didn't want any part of her.

_May 18, 1991 -- Ross and Chandler's Dorm Room_

The knock at the door caused both boys to jump up. Chandler reached the door first. "Oh, it's for you," he grumbled at Ross.

"Oh, Jack, the boy who hates Thanksgiving is here, too." Judy called to her husband, who was following behind her.

"Of course, Chandler's here, Mom. We live together," Ross said, rolling his eyes as his family came in.

"Oh, Ross, we're so proud of you!" Judy exclaimed, engulfing him in a hug. As always, the instant his mom doted on him, Ross forgot to behave in any way resembling mature and gave a goofy grin. "Oh, Mom, it's no big deal… Although, I am graduating summa cum laude."

"Of course you are, dear," Judy exclaimed. "We're so proud of you." There was a slight pause while she turned to glance at Monica. "We'll be lucky if your sister even graduates."

It was hours later after this pathetic display of favoritism that history as Chandler Bing knew it changed dramatically. He was at his last college party, feeling pretty darn good, but not yet completely wasted, and it had been awhile since he'd seen Ross, although he suspected Ross and Carol had gone off for some private celebrating. This would have been fine, and of no consequence to Chandler, if he had gone straight to get another bottle of beer as he had planned. But he did not. He really should have.

But instead, he took a fast look around the room beforehand. And saw something that made his stomach turn. There in the corner stood Monica, or The Toe Amputator, as Chandler was fond of calling her in his head, talking to Matthew Bursten. Ross had been the one to invite Moncia to the party. Which would have been fine if Ross had not gone off with Carol and Monica had chosen to talk to anyone but Matthew Bursten. Chandler could have ignored her presence entirely. Still could, really.

The only problem, and it was a small one, was that gold ole Matt was sort of known for chatting up girls at parties and then convincing them to do things they never seemed all that happy to have done later. With a deep sigh, Chandler wandered over to the pair just in time to hear Matthew say to Monica, "Look I'm only telling you this cause I really like you. You're a great girl, and if you don't wanna, you don't wanna. But if you don't… well, no one is gonna want to hang out with you. No boys, anyway. I mean really, what's the point?"

Monica looked doubtful for a second, but then said, "Well, if you really want to." Her voice was more unsure, but Chandler could hear that same tone to it he had heard years ago, "Hey Chandler, I can make you macaroni and cheese if you want". She was eager to please. And with Matthew Bursten, just a little eager to please was too much.

Matthew grinned as he took Monica's arm. "Let me show you to my room," he said, just as Chandler reached out and grabbed Monica's other arm.

"Monica, Ross is looking for you," he said.

Monica looked at him in surprise. Chandler hadn't spoken to her in years. They had studiously avoided each other's existence since the time she had come with her parents to pick up Ross for winter break right after the toe incident.

His voice a little firmer, Chandler continued, "I really think we should go or he'll be worried."

Matthew gave him a warning glance, before turning to Monica, "You're a grown up, you can do whatever you want. You don't have to go with him."

"Yes, that's true. You are an adult and you can do whatever you want, and any guy who won't like you just cause there's something you don't want to do isn't a guy who deserves you," Chandler replied.

Matthew's warning glance turned into one of pure hatred.

Monica continued to look at Chandler inquisitively and finally backed away from Matthew. "I should go find Ross," she said and Matthew, throwing a disgusted glance her way, walked towards the next unsuspecting victim.

"I don't know where he is," Chandler said. "I guess I just wanted to get you away from that creep."

"But he liked me?" Monica tried to sound certain, but there was a clear question in her words.

"No, he did not. He liked the way you looked and what he thought he could do with you. Monica, trust me, I'm not you're biggest fan, but you're attractive and Ross tells me you're smart and nice, so lots of other guys are going to like you." Glancing at her face, he saw her doubt and so impulsively added, "Despite what your mother tells you or what you think based on what a bunch of idiot guys in high school said to you just cause you needed to lose a little bit of weight. How you've survived before now without figuring this out is beyond me."

The tears fell down Monica's cheeks again, and she moved to leave the party. Chandler followed. "Go back to the dorm, okay?" he asked her. She nodded and so he continued, "And try not to feel the need to please every guy who seems to like you, but only the ones you want to cause they're actually nice to you for more than a few seconds."

"Thanks," Monica mumbled, before continuing on her way.

Chandler went back to the party shaking his head. He was glad that now that he was graduating, he'd never have to see her again.

To Be Continued…


	2. TOW They Meet Again

AN: Thanks so much for all the reviews! They are very encouraging. So, before I go on, I have to explain that I did some searching. One of you commented that Chandler didn't know Monica was the one to cut off his toe until "TOW All the Thanksgivings", so I went and re-watched that episode. It seems to me that Chandler knew it was Monica - he was there, how could he not?, just not that it was a result of his calling her fat.

But the other thing I noticed was that there seems to be a discrepancy of the "life before the show" info. I have a timeline built on what I know, so I can stay in canon. I was already a little confused about when Joey moved in. In the early episodes, it always seems to me that Joey barely knows Ross, so I thought he may have just moved in, but now notice that there are two different possibilities. The first is from the episode when Janice asked if any of them had gotten together before (I think). In the flashback for that episode, Chandler is looking for a new roommate (who ends up being Joey), and early on when Chandler and Monica see Rachel at the bar, one of her friends says something about her being married to Barry in a year. So, since the show starts on Rachel's wedding day, this implies Joey moved in with Chandler in fall of 1993 - one year before the show started. But in TOW All the Thanksgivings, the flashback where Joey puts the turkey on his head is timed as Thanksgiving 1992 which of course implies he moved in before November of 1992.

Clearly, I can't match both of these timelines -- only one can be "right". So, I've decided to go with the later moving in date (1993) simply as it seems to me that Chandler and Ross must have graduated college in 1991. (Assuming Ross and Monica are a year apart, in the first Thanksgiving flashback (1987) Ross must be in his freshmen year as Monica is still in high school, we can assume Ross and Chandler graduated three years later -- which would be the 1990/1991 school year). If Joey moved in during 1992, this gives only a year for Chandler to move in across the hall from Monica and them all to become friends with Kip, Kip and Monica to date and breakup, and then for Chandler to look for a new roommate. This seems like not enough time for all of that to happen.

Also, I realized that based on what we know, Monica should have graduated college in 1992, but again, that makes things fairly rushed. I'm not sure we are ever told that she went to college, so I wrote the one reference to that out of the first chapter, and had her go to culinary school instead, which makes sense and takes less time. Also, I checked and there's a really good culinary school in NYC not too far from her apartment on the show, so I've decided that's where she went to school. It's unclear how long the program is, so I've just randomly decided it takes three years. This means she would finish around the same time as Ross and Chandler graduate college.

One more thing, I'm pretty sure that Ross is supposed to be "Dr. Gellar" which means he has a PhD. I know a lot of people with PhDs and they generally take somewhere around 5-6 years to get. If Ross graduated college in 1991, that would mean he would finish his PhD in 1996 or 1997 -- several years after the show started. And frankly, as anyone who has a PhD can tell you, he would not have all that time to hang out with his friends while he was finishing his dissertation. I don't think it's clear where Ross works before the museum, though, so I have decided that Ross is in graduate school through 1995 -- thus finishes his PhD in about as little time as can be expected and still be reasonable and is incredibly relaxed during his last year (when he was also busy going through a divorce and having a baby -- normal people probably would not have finished their dissertation in this same year, but since this is after the show started, I don't have to deal with that). This means that for most of this story, Ross will be working on his PhD.

Sorry for the long note, but I wanted to explain what I am doing. If any of this goes against canon, or you have an explanation for the apparent discrepancy I mentioned above, please let me know. Before the last few days, I didn't really spend much time trying to figure this out, so I'm sure I'm missing lots of other information I should know about what the writers told us about the "pre-show" days.

One more thing, the Ritz Carlton Battery Park is fairly new, but I think there was a Ritz there before the new one was built as well. Not sure if it was there in 1992, but I'm just guessing there was.

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**Chapter 2: TOW They Meet Again**

_November 20, 1991 -- The bar that became Central Perk_

"I'll have a Bud," Chandler called to the man behind the counter, glancing around. He hadn't seen Ross since graduation and wondered why he had decided to meet here. It wasn't too far away from campus, but far enough that they had never come here when in school.

Ross walked in and smiled as he saw Chandler. Pete, the blue haired bartender, called out, "Hey, Ross. The usual?" Ross nodded in response.

"Great to see you, man," he said to Chandler and the two gave each other an awkward hug - the kind where they stood as far away as possible from each other and still get their arms around each other, and then slapped each other on the back. "Thanks for meeting me here," he continued. "I know it's no where near campus, but since we graduated, I find myself spending a lot more time at Monica's and she lives right above here."

Chandler just nodded, "Yeah, I think you mentioned that. It's your grandmother's place right? And right near Monica's school?"

"Yup, although Grandma moved to Florida a few months back, so now it's just Monica's. And she's finished her culinary school thing, so now she's working. She's a su chef at that great Italian bistro near campus. You remember, the place we…" Ross let his words wander off as he recalled just what Chandler and he had done with Carol and Julia (Chandler's girlfriend at the time) behind Monica's new place of employment.

Chandler laughed, "Oh yeah, one does not forget things like that too quickly."

"Anyway," Ross shook off the memory, "you know how Carol feels about 'womenly' things - she hates to cook, so we spend most nights here with Monica who is only too happy to use us as her guinea pigs. Her roommate, Phoebe, is a vegetarian, so Monica can't try out her meat recipes on her. But anyway, how are you, man? What are you doing now?"

Chandler thought of a nice way to phrase his job, then realized there wasn't one, and besides this was Ross. "I have a temp job as data processor. If I stay long enough and do a decent job, I may move to the statistical analysis group and basically be a data manipulator, but I don't know if I want to stay that long. How's school going for you?"

"Oh, same old, same old. Classes are harder, of course, but not really all that much different yet. I don't get to do my own thing and start work on my dissertation until next year. But anyway, I do have news. Carol and I are getting married!" Ross' whole face lit up at this, as it always did when he talked about Carol. It was like he was so surprised that any girl wanted to spend time with him that whenever he mentioned anything about Carol that implied she actually liked him, he couldn't contain his glee.

"Wow! That's awesome! When?" Chandler exclaimed, trying to match Ross' enthusiasm. Just cause he thought marriage was about the worst idea ever, didn't mean everyone else had to.

"January 11. We didn't want to wait too long, but didn't want to get in the way of all the holidays. So, can you come?"

"Of course."

"Great! Well, then…" Ross trailed off again, looking at his shoe. "Any chance you'd be my best man?" he asked quietly - almost too quietly to be heard over the din of the bar.

"Oh…" Chandler replied, caught off guard. "Um, yeah, sure. Of course. Thanks for asking me, buddy!"

Ross smiled, "Oh, good. Um,…, just one small thing. You know as I've said, we've been spending lots of time with Monica and they've gotten really close and so… well, Carol asked Monica to be her maid of honor, so you'll have to walk my sister down the aisle."

Chandler stopped and almost backed out. He really didn't want several minutes alone with Monica. But then he remembered - you don't really talk when you walk down the aisle. So a few minutes of silence with her and then he could go back to pretending that the psycho didn't exist. Perfect. He smiled, "Not a problem."

"Oh, great!" Ross sighed. I was a little worried you'd back down. So, what are you doing next week for Thanksgiving?"

Chandler made a face. "Nothing," he said as if it should be obvious.

"Oh, well you could join us if you want," Ross said.

Chandler thought about it for a moment. It would be nice to have a real excuse to get out of pity invites from people at work.

"My folks are going to visit Grandma in Florida, so Monica is having it at her place. It'll just be her and Phoebe, Carol and me," Ross continued.

"Oh, right, um…, you know I … um… someone from work already invited me," Chandler lied. No way was he spending the evening with Monica again. Two Thanksgivings were enough. The worst day of the year for him and you mix Monica in and suddenly they are disasters waiting to happen.

_January 11, 1992 -- Ritz Carlton Battery Park_

Ross came running in to the room, all smiles. "Okay, we are ready to go!" he exclaimed.

"Ross, man, calm down," Chandler said, placing a hand on Ross' shoulder. "You're bouncing off the walls here," he laughed.

Ross looked at him for a minute and then exclaimed, "I'm getting married today!! In like, five minutes!"

At this moment, Jack Gellar entered the room, a look of fatherly pride clear in his eyes.

"Time to get ready, son," he said and Ross, as excited as he was, ran out of the room, Chandler and Jack following behind.

The wedding planner walked right over and began lining everyone up. As she placed Chandler and Monica side by side, Chandler turned studiously away.

In a quiet voice, Monica whispered, "Hi, Chandler. You look nice."

"Yeah, you, too," he mumbled, not bothering to actually look at her.

Judy walked by and taking one look at Monica, snapped, "Monica stand up. Try to look presentable. It's your brother's wedding day, you don't need to embarrass him!" before taking her place of honor by Ross' side.

Without even looking at her, Chandler could feel her slump a bit, and without really meaning to, he turned toward her. "Don't listen to her, you look great," he whispered.

Monica turned to him, her eyes full of hope, "Really?" she whispered.

Chandler stepped back to really look at her and shook his head. "Yes, really," he said and meant it.

To Be Continued…


End file.
